Love it or hate it — or straddle the line somewhere in-between — the Hot Wheels #Pop Culture line has brought us some of the larger metal/metal castings Hot Wheels has to offer, complete with #Real Riders. This year, the Pop Culture line started off with a familiar brand in #Nestlé and some of their confectionary brands.

The card art was amazingly bright, but the casting selection was hardly a refresh with all five vehicles being mainstays in the Pop Culture line. The ’34 Dodge Delivery (Fun Dip), ’67 Ford Bronco (Pixy Stix), Custom ’52 Chevy (SweeTarts) and Power Panel (Laffy Taffy), seemed to linger on the pegs as it was the #Volkswagen Deluxe Station Wagon (Nerds) that was arguably the most popular vehicle from this mix as it tended to be the one that was missing on the pegs in most circumstances.

Hot Wheels Volkswagen Deluxe Station Wagon from the 2017 Pop Culture / Nestle series … featuring Nerds graphics (other side)

Most of that can be attributed to the casting as the #Volkswagen Deluxe Station Wagon has done rather well in the #Pop Culture line over the last several years of the line’s existence. Its appeared in The Saturday Evening Post series featuring the art of Norman Rockwell and featured Batman ZOK’ing the Joker on one side of its Batman Classic TV Series series. This third release of the VW DLX Station Wagon featured the Nerds brand — artwork that is arguably as pop culture as the other two. Just about every kid loved the playfulness of the Nerds creatures and the brand’s dual-flavor packaging.

Represented here with the Blue (Wildberry) and the Green (Watermelon) Nerds, the brand looks good on the #Volkswagen Deluxe Station Wagon due to the colorful character this #VW bus already posses.

Hot Wheels Volkswagen Deluxe Station Wagon from the 2017 Pop Culture / Nestle series … featuring Nerds graphics (rear)

The blue #Real Riders 5-Spoke Wheels w/ white lines are a nice touch and it only enhances the brand’s graphics that sit on this blank canvas of a casting … since its base coat is white. The added bonus of painted front directionals and rear taillights, combined with the silver #VW logo on front and “VOLKSWAGEN” badging on the rear, complete the look, making it well worth the $4.50 price-point these retail for.

This series never hit all at once, like the other #Pop Culture series seem to do. Instead, smaller-than-usual amounts seem to have made it to the big box stores as the bulk of this candy series seems to have been allocated to the grocery stores for their Easter seasonal sections — which went up as soon as the Valentine’s Day merchandise came down on February 15. With stores still receiving shipments of these, and collectors focused on finding the next series, The Beatles Albums, already, this “nerded-out” #Volkswagen Deluxe Station Wagon should be a lot easier to track down.

RELEASE DETAILS: White Body (metal). Light Blue Tinted Windows. Black Interior. Blue Real Riders 5-Spoke (RR5SP) Wheels w/ White Lines. Unpainted Metal Base. Made in Thailand. Toy# DWH19. Released in 2017 as part of the Pop Culture / Nestlé series.